Friday, December 30, 2011

Balance: Casual and Competitive

It’s a damn shame I don’t work for $2. Admittedly I’ve never been easy on the company itself. Actually most of the people I’ve come into contact from S2 have been awesome, but enough is enough. It’s been about a month of dealing with the same bullshit every TMM game.

Gemini – MonarchYou may argue, o Peter these heroes aren’t OP you’re just a big noob who is crying cause he lost a TMM game. For your first point, you’re entitled to an opinion as we all are, as for the second you’re absolutely right. I play this game for fun, it’s my hobby. I would rather play HoN than watch TV like a zombie, so I end up playing a lot of public matchmaking.

Maybe it’s my fault, maybe I shouldn’t expect so much from a company that fails us on a consistent basic. But let us get back to the facts, starting off with a hero we all love to hate.

Gemini Unfortunately all of my facts come from what I have played against or with, as I have not played the hero myself, nor will I probably ever. But honestly… a hero that doesn’t need boots? A hero that is designed so poorly that getting stats over your other abilities actually is proper? Are we dealing with a Hammerstorm here? I don’t think so. Time and time again I see this hero squatting in the middle lane waiting to hit level 6. Boom, there it is, the lane is now unwinnable, two dogs last hitting separately makes him nearly impossible to beat in lane.

Level 6 (Fire and Ice):

-370 Movement Speed (no need for boots)

-5.5 Magic Armor (??????? Why?)

-Equal Stats to Gemini

-Two may recombine to from Gemini equal to the health of the lower unit

The idea of this hero is absolutely ridiculous (not even touching on his normal form escape), but let us keep going, my favorite hero is next!

MonarchAhh if it isn’t the familiar face Monarch, scummiest hero on Newerth. This hero angers me more than anything else $2 has cooked up, excluding possibly the 625 range on Emerald Warden. Not being an OP hero picker I have not played Monarch very much, believe I played it once or twice after a rage-game (you know what I’m talking about). Crippling Pollen (lvl 1)

-1.5s Silence/Immobalize + Ministun (why not)

-2s/2.5s/3s at higher levels (Basically a tundra ult jk 12s cd)

-50 Damage per second (yet another “why not”)

Chrysalis
-4s Immobilize on allied hero

- 30/40/50/60% reduced damage (Similar to Glacius Freeze)

- 20/35/50/65 Health healed per second (Jk its better)

Noxious Cloud

-15/30/45/60 Magic damage/s

-25/30/35/40% slow that

-Spreads from 150 aoe to 550 aoe

-Lasts 5 Seconds

Now that we have defined the heroes abilities let’s make some generalizations. First skill is basically a 1.5s stun, so it’s like a ranged hero with a Blacksmith stun, I guess that’s not that too overpowered. However combo that with her third ability Noxious Cloud and you’re looking at a hero slowed for 3-4 seconds. Assuming they are hauling out of it while constantly getting railed with 600 range auto attacks that’s a lot of damage coming from this vicious butterfly. Don’t forget you have another brainless hero like Ra or Zephyr pounding away at you while you are trapped in Monarch’s endless disable. Just these two abilities make any lane nearly unwinnable against a combo like this. Playing against these combos just about every game I have been forced to find ways to fight effectively against it. Rampage works (just needs to auto attack); also Plague Rider helps a ton, keeping lane control and level advantage. Jereziah also is a very helpful tool to end the infinite disable.

Now I have yet to see these heroes have that much impact on the competitive scene and frankly I am not even sure they will. Gemini I foresee as a problem as the better players begin to utilize all of his abilities and invincibility. However Monarch can be stopped, if you know it is coming. The sad thing is for the rest of the HoN community is that they will be consistently blindsided by this hero in TMM unless playing one of the banning modes. Having to forfeit your long lane to their monarch +1 is something that no one wants to do, but her power is unmatched and if you try and go against it you will most likely, unfortunately, feed.

The saddest thing is that once these heroes do finally receive their overdue nerfs, another new hero will come out that will trump them. Because of this $2 will make lots of money from people purchasing it as an Early Access Hero and then will also make some more bank on its alt avatar. Fantastic, good for you, thanks in advance.